When the days were completed for their purification
according to the law of Moses,
the parents of Jesus took him up to Jerusalem
to present him to the Lord,
just as it is written in the law of the Lord,
Every male that opens the womb shall be consecrated to the Lord,
and to offer the sacrifice of
a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons,
in accordance with the dictate in the law of the Lord.
Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon.
This man was righteous and devout,
awaiting the consolation of Israel,
and the Holy Spirit was upon him.
It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit
that he should not see death
before he had seen the Christ of the Lord.
He came in the Spirit into the temple;
and when the parents brought in the child Jesus
to perform the custom of the law in regard to him,
he took him into his arms and blessed God, saying:
"Lord, now let your servant go in peace;
your word has been fulfilled:
my own eyes have seen the salvation
which you prepared in the sight of every people,
a light to reveal you to the nations
and the glory of your people Israel."
The child's father and mother were amazed at what was said about him;
and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother,
"Behold, this child is destined
for the fall and rise of many in Israel,
and to be a sign that will be contradicted
(and you yourself a sword will pierce)
so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed."
REFLECTION
In today's Gospel reading, the Blessed Virgin with the greatest reverence offered her Divine Son in the Temple forty days after the birth of Our Lord, so that she might fulfill the precepts of legal purification. She placed Him in the arms of the aged St. Simeon. The Old Laws prescribed that the firstborn son should be redeemed by his parents for the price of five shekels (coins) (Num 3:47).
Symbolically, these five shekels represented the five wounds of Christ, with which, as with a price, He redeems the human race. Mary had already been enlightened through the holy Scriptures to know the death which the Redeemer was to suffer. And she firmly consented to the will of the Eternal Father by sacrificing her Son to Him. St Alphonsus Liguori concludes from this that "she surpassed all the martyrs in generosity, for the martyrs offered their own lives; but the Virgin offered the life of her Son, whom she loved and esteemed infinitely more than her own life."
Let us, then, imitate the patience of our Blessed Mother by conforming our will to the will of God.
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